Previewing

Applies to

Uninterrupted preview: You can now make changes to the open project while a preview is playing back in After Effects.

Simplified and configurable preview: You can now customize Preview behaviors using the updated Preview panel. If you're new to After Effects, you will find the default Preview intuitive with real-time playback of cached frames. For you, the experienced After Effects user, Preview options are configurable to suit your working style.

Preview video and audio

Though it is common to speak of rendering as if this term only applies to final output, the processes of creating previews to show in the Footage, Layer, and Composition panels are also kinds of rendering.

You can preview all or part of your composition as you work, without rendering to final output. Many of the controls for previewing are in the Preview panel.

Use preview to play video and audio

After Effects allocates RAM to play video and audio in the Timeline, Layer, or Footage panel at real-time speed. The number of frames that can be stored for real-time playback depends on the amount of RAM available and the settings in the Preview panel.

The default preview behavior is configured to produce a preview that best emulates real-time playback. When you press spacebar (default keyboard shortcut), After Effects starts a preview with audio, and caches frames until the available RAM is filled.

To start a preview of video and audio, do any of the following:

Press any of Preview keyboard shortcuts (Spacebar, Numpad-0, or Shift+Numpad-0). Each keyboard shortcut results in a different Preview behavior, based on the Preview settings assigned to each of the keys. You can configure the Preview behavior for each keyboard shortcut by modifying settings in the Preview panel. For more information, see Configure Preview Behaviors.

Click the (Play) button in the Preview panel. When you click the Play button, settings assigned for the Shortcut, currently displayed in the Preview panel, is used.

Select Composition > Preview > Play. When you select the Play option, settings assigned for the Shortcut, currently displayed in the Preview panel, is used.

Configure Preview behaviors

You can configure the Preview options to suit your working style. Controls in the Preview panel allow you to configure preview behaviors for each keyboard shortcut (Spacebar, Numpad 0, and Shift + Numpad 0): audio, looping, caching, range, and layer controls.

To configure settings for Preview, do the following:

The Preview panel is open by default in most Workspaces within After Effects. However, if the Preview panel is closed, select Window > Preview to open it.

In the Preview panel, you can modify the following settings to configure Preview behavior:

Shortcut

Choose a keyboard shorctut to play/stop a preview: Spacebar, Numpad 0, and Shift + Numpad 0. The Preview behavior depends on the settings specified for the currently selected Shortcut key.

Reset

Restore default preview settings for all Shortcut keys.

To restore preview settings for all keyboard shortcuts to closely match their behaviors in previous versions (After Effects CC 2014 and older), hold the Option (Mac OS) or Alt (Windows) key, and click the Reset button.

Loop

Specify if you want the Preview to play in a loop.

Mute Audio

Mute audio during a Preview.

Preview Favors

Specify if you want Preview to favor the Frame Rate or Length. You can use the Preview Favors option to optimize caching and playback behavior for better Frame Rate performance or unlimited Length of preview.

When Preview Favors is set to Frame Rate:

After Effects renders and caches frames until the available RAM is filled, and then plays the cached frames in real-time.

During the rendering and caching phase, frames are rendered and cached as fast as possible. Playback of cached frames begins immediately, but no faster than real-time.

If the cache fills available RAM before all frames in the range are rendered, only the frames in the cache are previewed.

When the caching phase is completed, real-time playback will begin from the time defined by the Play From control, or simply continue if rendering was faster than real-time.

When Preview Favors is set to Length:

Playback begins by rendering and caching frames with only a small advance buffer, but no faster than real time.

The entire range will preview; if the cache fills available RAM before all frames in the range are rendered, the oldest frames in the cache are discarded.

Real-time playback only occurs if the frames render faster than real-time, or after the first loop if the entire range fits in the cache.

The Length option is best-suited when previewing frames that render faster than real-time, which is often the case in the Footage panel, or when previewing a range too long to fit all of the frames in the cache.

Audio plays, if enabled. When playback speed is less than real-time, audio stutters to maintain sync with video. The audio stutter is more likely to occur if Mute Audio When Preview Is Not Real-Time option in Preferences (Preferences > Preview) is disabled. The option is disabled by default.

Range

Defines the range of frames that are previewed:

Work Area: Only the frames within the work area.

Work Area - Extended by Current Time: Work area is dynamically extended the work area with reference to the position of the current-time indicator (CTI).

If the CTI is placed before the work area, the length of the range is from the current time to the work area end point.

If the CTI is placed after the work area, the length of the range is from the work area start point to the current time; unless From Current Time is enabled, in which case the length of the range is from the work area start point to the last frame of the composition, layer, or footage.

If the CTI is placed inside the work area, the range is the work area with no extension.

Entire Duration: All frames of the composition, layer, or footage.

Layer Controls

Choose whether to display layer controls for selected layers and other viewer panel overlays during preview. When preview is stopped, layer controls and overlays return to their previous visibility setting.

If you stop a preview before all frames in the range have been rendered, whether to start playback of cached frames before all frames in the range have been rendered. This scenario is only when the preview was started with Preview Favors set to Frame Rate.

Whether the CTI stays at the current time or moves to the playback time (the time at which you stopped the preview).

Using Preview Shortcut to stop a Preview

Using the preview keyboard shortcuts (Spacebar, Numpad-0, or Shift + Numpad-0) to stop a preview, results in different stop behaviors:

Spacebar: CTI moves to the playback time. If frame rendering is interrupted, playback of the cached frames begins.

Numpad-0: CTI stays at the current time. If frame rendering is interrupted, playback of the cached frames begins.

Shift + Numpad-0: CTI stays at the current time. If frame rendering is interrupted, playback of the cached frames begins.

Note:

The stop behavior for the preview shortcuts is a result of the shortcut you pressed to stop the preview, not the shortcut you used to start the preview.

Using the Play/Stop button to stop a Preview

The Play/Stop button in the Preview panel and Composition > Preview > Play Current Preview are linked to the shortcut currently displayed in the Preview panel. Using these actions to stop a preview will have the same result as pressing the currently displayed shortcut key.

Default preview settings

The following are the default preview settings for each of the preview Shortcut keys:

Spacebar

Numpad-0

Shift + Numpad-0

Loop: on

Audio: on

Preview Favors: Frame Rate

Range: Work Area Extended by Current Time

Play From: Current Time

Layer Controls: Off

Frame Rate: Auto

Skip: 0

Resolution: Auto

Full Screen: disabled

When Spacebar is used to stop a preview:

CTI: moves to playback time

Interrupt caching: start playback

Loop: on

Audio: on

Preview Favors: Frame Rate

Range: Work Area

Play From: Start of Range

Layer Controls: Off

Frame Rate: Auto

Skip: 0

Resolution: Auto

Full Screen: disabled

When Numpad-0 is used to stop a preview:

CTI: stays at current time

Interrupt caching: start playback

Loop: on

Audio: on

Preview Favors: Frame Rate

Range: Work Area Extended by CurrentTime

Play From: Start of Range

Layer Controls: Off

Frame Rate: Auto

Skip: 1

Resolution: Auto

Full Screen: disabled

When Shift + Numpad-0 is used to stop a preview:

CTI: stays at current time

Interrupt caching: start playback

Loop options for previews

Click the Loop Options button in the Preview
panel until it shows the desired state:

Loop

Repeatedly plays preview from beginning to end.

Play Once

Plays preview once.

Preview only audio

When you preview only audio, it plays immediately
at real-time speed, unless you’ve applied Audio effects other than
Stereo Mixer, in which case you may have to wait for audio to render
before it plays.

Note:

If audio must be rendered for a preview,
then only the amount of audio specified by the Duration setting
in the Previews preferences is rendered and played for the preview.
The default is 30 seconds.

The
Audio Hardware and Audio Output Mapping preferences determine the behavior
of audio previews. These preferences do not affect final output.
The output module settings determine the quality of audio in final
output. For best-quality audio previews, choose an ASIO device if
one is available in the Default Device menu in the Audio Hardware
preferences. Otherwise, choose one of the devices for your system,
such as the After Effects WDM Sound device (Windows) or one of the
Built-in devices (Mac OS).

To preview only audio from the current
time, choose Composition > Preview > Audio Preview (Here Forward)
or press the decimal point key (.) on the numeric keypad.

To preview only audio in the work area, choose Composition
> Preview > Audio Preview (Work Area) or press Alt+decimal
point (.) (Windows) or Option+decimal point (.) (Mac OS) on the
numeric keypad.

Manually preview (scrub) video and audio

To manually preview (scrub) video in the Timeline panel or go to a specific frame, drag the current-time indicator.

To scrub audio in the Timeline panel, Ctrl+Alt-drag (Windows) or Command+Option-drag (Mac OS) the current-time indicator.

To scrub audio and video in the Timeline panel, Ctrl-drag (Windows) or Command-drag (Mac OS) the current-time indicator.

If you stop moving the current-time indicator while keeping the mouse button depressed, a short section of audio loops.

To manually preview (scrub) only the frames that are already rendered and cached into the RAM cache, press Caps Lock before dragging the current-time indicator. This prevents After Effects from trying to render other frames when you drag over or past them. This technique is useful when you want to manually preview some frames that you rendered using preview settings that used an option to skip every other frame.

Audio panel options

During previews, the Audio panel volume unit
(VU) meter actively displays audio volume levels. At the top of
the VU meter, signals indicate when the audio is clipping—a
distortion that occurs when the audio signal exceeds the maximum level
that the audio device allows.

To view the VU meter and levels
controls in more detail, increase the height of the Audio panel.

Choose
Options in the Audio panel menu to specify the following options:

Additional tips and options for
previewing

With all previewing methods—as with rendering to final output—a layer is only visible in rendered previews if its Video layer switch is selected.

The following are some of the factors that influence the speed with which previews are rendered:

layer switches

Fast Previews settings

preference settings

composition settings.

Use the Resolution/Down Sample Factor setting menu which is one of the simplest and most influential of the preview settings controls. Choose a value other than Full from this menu to see all previews at a lower resolution.

To turn pixel-aspect ratio correction on or off
for previews, click the Toggle Pixel Aspect Ratio Correction button at
the bottom of the panel. The quality of the pixel aspect ratio correction
is determined by the Zoom Quality preference. (See Viewer Quality
preferences.)

When possible, preview on the same kind of device that your audience will use to view your final output. For example, you can preview on an external video monitor.

Select
Show Rendering Progress In Info Panel And Flowchart (Edit > Preferences >
Display (Windows) or After Effects > Preferences >
Display (Mac OS)) to see additional information in the Info panel
or the project Flowchart panel during rendering, either for previews
or for final output.

Move the current-time indicator
(CTI)

CTI in layer window

The most basic way of previewing frames is to manually
preview by moving or dragging the current-time indicator (CTI).

The time ruler visually represents the time dimension
of a composition, a layer, or a footage item. In a Layer or Footage
panel, the time ruler appears near the bottom of the panel. For
a Composition panel, the time ruler appears in the corresponding
Timeline panel. The time rulers in different panels represent different durations.
The time ruler in a Layer or Footage panel represents the duration
of the contents of that panel; the time ruler in the Timeline panel
represents the duration of the entire composition.

On a time ruler, the current-time indicator indicates
the frame you are viewing or modifying.

CTI in Timeline panel

To go forward or backward one frame, click the Next Frame
or
Previous Frame button
in the Preview panel, or press Page Down or Page Up.

To go forward or backward ten frames, Shift-click the Next
Frame or Previous Frame button, or press Shift+Page Down or Shift+Page
Up.

To go forward a specific period of time or number of frames,
click the current-time display, and then enter the plus sign (+)
followed by the timecode or number of frames to advance. For example,
enter +20 to go forward 20 frames or 1:00 to
go forward one second. Precede the value by the minus sign (-) to
go backward. For example, enter +-20 to go
backward 20 frames or +-1:00 to go backward
one second.

To go to the first or last frame, click the First Frame or
Last Frame button in
the Preview panel, or press Home or End.

To go to the first or last frame of the work area, press
Shift+Home or Shift+End.

To go to a specific frame, click in the time ruler; click
the current-time display in the Footage, Layer, Composition, or
Timeline panel; or press Alt+Shift+J (Windows) or Option+Shift+J
(Mac OS). You can also drag the current-time display in the Timeline
panel to modify the value.

Shift-drag the current-time indicator to snap to keyframes,
markers, In and Out points, the beginning or end of the composition,
or the beginning or end of the work area.

If you scrub the CTI while a preview is playing, preview will stop. To scrub the CTI without stopping a preview, hold Option/Alt while scrubbing.

Zoom in or out in time for a composition

In the Timeline panel, click the Zoom In button or the Zoom Out button , or drag the zoom slider between the buttons.

On the main keyboard, press the = (equal sign) key to zoom in or press the – (hyphen) key to zoom out in time.

Drag the Time Navigator Start or Time Navigator End brackets to zoom in or out on a section of the composition time ruler.

Note:

When you click the Time Navigator in the Timeline panel, the Info panel shows the times of the beginning and end of the Time Navigator duration.

To zoom out to show the entire composition duration, press Shift+; (semicolon) with the Composition panel or Timeline panel active. Press Shift+; again to zoom back in to the duration specified by the Time Navigator.

To zoom out to show the entire composition duration, Shift-double-click the Time Navigator. Shift-double-click it again to zoom back in to the duration specified by the Time Navigator.

To zoom in to show individual frames in the time ruler, double-click the Time Navigator. Double-click the Time Navigator again to zoom out to show the entire composition duration.

Choose a viewer to always preview

Designating a viewer as the default panel
to preview is especially useful when you have a Composition viewer
that represents your final output and you always want to preview
that viewer, even when you’re changing settings in other panels.

The
panel that’s set to always preview appears frontmost for the duration
of the preview.

Click the Always Preview This View button in the lower-left corner of the panel.

OR

Click the Primary Viewer button in the lower-left corner of the panel.

Primary Viewer Button

The Primary Viewer button is located next to the Always Preview This View button in the lower left of the Composition, Layer, and Footage viewer panels.

Primary Viewer functions similarly to Always Preview This View, except that Primary Viewer only defines which viewer or view is used for audio and external video preview.

Only one view can be set as Primary Viewer; enabling it for a viewer or view disables it in any other viewer or view where it had previously been enabled.

When Primary Viewer is disabled, the most recently active viewer or view is used for audio and external video preview.

When you switch to a different viewer or view, that viewer or view takes control of audio and external video preview.

Note:

When multiple views are open, previews use the frontmost composition view for 2D compositions and the Active Camera view for 3D compositions. To turn off the Active Camera, deselect Previews Favor Active Camera in the Preview panel menu.

Preview modes and Viewer Quality
preferences

After Effects provides several options for
previewing that make various tradeoffs between speed and fidelity.

Preview modes and Fast Previews
preferences

Each preview mode provides a different balance
between quality and speed for playback and for updating of images
during interactions, such as when you drag a layer in the Composition
panel or modifying a property value in the Timeline panel.

Draft
3D and Live Update modes apply to all views of a composition.

Draft 3D

Disables lights, shadows, and depth-of-field blur for cameras.
To turn Draft 3D mode on or off, click the Draft 3D button at the
top of the Timeline panel.

Live Update

Updates images in the Composition or Layer panel during interactions. When Live Update is deselected, After Effects displays wireframe representations during interactions.

To temporarily toggle Live Update mode, hold Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while dragging to move a layer, modify a property value, or move the current-time indicator.

To prevent After Effects from updating images in
the Footage, Layer, and Composition panels, press Caps Lock. When
you make a change that would otherwise appear in a panel, After
Effects adds a red bar at the bottom of the panel with a text reminder
that image refresh is disabled. After Effects continues to update panel
controls such as motion paths, anchor points, and mask outlines
as you move them. To resume panel updates and display all changes,
press Caps Lock again. Pressing Caps Lock is a good way to prevent
views from being refreshed for each frame during rendering for final
output.

Note:

When you are using OpenGL to render previews
and are previewing on a video monitor, the preview shown on the
video monitor doesn’t update as you interact with elements of your
composition until you have released the mouse at the end of an interaction.
(See Preview
on an external video monitor.)

Fast Previews

Fast Previews is off. Use this mode when previewing the final quality of your composition.

Adaptive Resolution

Attempts to downsample footage while dragging a layer or scrubbing a property value. For the ray-traced 3D compositions, Adaptive Resolution will reduce the ray-tracing quality based on the current adaptive resolution:

Available in Ray-traced 3D compositions only. This option reduces the ray-tracing quality (number of rays fired by the ray tracer) to 1.

Fast Draft

When laying out a complex scene, or if you are working in a ray-traced 3D composition, you can use Fast Draft mode for previewing. In ray-traced 3D compositions, Fast draft mode supports for beveled, extruded, and curved 3D layers. When previewing, the scene is downsampled to speed up the loading of textures to the GPU. In Fast Draft mode, each frame of video is still read in to the renderer as needed. The downsample factor is set at 1/4 resolution, and effects and track mattes are on.

Wireframe

Useful for setting up and previewing complex compositions.

In Draft, Fast Draft, and Wireframe modes, the Current Renderer menu button's lightning bolt appears orange. In Adaptive Resolution, it appears orange when the composition is downsampled. In these modes, the name of the mode appears in the upper-right corner of the Composition view.

If adjusting a property or scrubbing through the Timeline takes a long time in Off, Adaptive Resolution, or Draft modes, the scene will temporarily switch to show wireframes. The frame will finish rendering when you stop moving the mouse.

If you are in a ray-traced 3D composition in Draft mode, and then switch to it to a Classic 3D composition, the fast preview mode automatically switches to Adaptive Resolution.

If you want to update more than one active view when scrubbing while holding down the Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac OS) key, enable the "Share View Options" option in the Select View Layout popup menu.

Press the Current Renderer menu button in the upper right corner of the Composition panel to quickly open the current renderer settings in the Composition Settings dialog box. This method is applicable to a 3D layer, camera, or light in the composition.

Changing the Fast Previews mode to match your workflow is important, especially when working with ray-traced 3D compositions.

Keyboard shortcuts for Fast Previews

Quality name

Shortcut

Off (Final Quality)

Ctrl+Alt+1 (Windows) / Cmd+Option+1 (Mac OS)

Adaptive Resolution

Ctrl+Alt+2 (Windows) / Cmd+Option+2 (Mac OS)

Draft

Ctrl+Alt+3 (Windows) / Cmd+Option+3 (Mac OS)

Fast Draft

Ctrl+Alt+4 (Windows) / Cmd+Option+4 (Mac OS)

Wireframe

Ctrl+Alt+5 (Windows) / Cmd+Option+5 (Mac OS)

Video Tutorial for Fast Previews

Viewer Quality preferences

In the Previews preferences category, you can choose the quality and speed of color management and zoom operations used in previews.

From the Zoom Quality or Color Management Quality menu, choose one of the following:

Faster

More Accurate Except Cached Preview

More Accurate

The Zoom Quality preference affects the quality of scaling performed for pixel aspect ratio correction in the Composition and Layer panels.

Note:

The More Accurate Except Cached Preview option uses the more accurate operations for manual and numpad 0 previews, but uses the faster operations for previews.

Note:

When the Show
Channel menu is set to an option that shows straight colors ( RGB
Straight, Alpha Overlay, or Alpha Boundary), the Viewer Quality
preference is ignored, and the preview is created as if the Viewer
Quality settings were Faster.

Region of interest (ROI)

The region of interest (ROI) is the area of the composition, layer, or footage item that is rendered for previews. Create a smaller region of interest to use less processing power and memory when previewing, thereby improving interaction speed and increasing preview duration.

By default, changing the region of interest does not affect file output. You can change the size of your composition and select what portion is rendered by cropping to the region of interest.

Note:

When the region of interest is selected, the Info panel displays the horizontal and vertical distances of the top (T), left (L), bottom (B), and right (R) edges of the region from the top-left corner of the composition.

To draw a region of interest, click the Region Of Interest button at the bottom of the Composition, Layer, or Footage panel, and then drag to select a viewable area of the panel.

To start over with the marquee tool, hold down Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) and click the Region Of Interest button.

To switch between using the region of interest and using the full composition, layer, or footage frame, click the Region Of Interest button.

To move or resize the region of interest, drag its edges or handles. Shift-drag a corner handle to resize while preserving aspect ratio.

To crop the composition to the region of interest, choose Composition > Crop Comp To Region Of Interest.

To crop the output to the region of interest, choose Use Region Of Interest in the Crop section of the Output Module Settings dialog box. (See Output module settings.)

To create the equivalent of a region of interest for a single layer, you can draw a temporary mask around the part of the layer that you are working with. The area outside of the mask will not be rendered. This can make working with a small portion of a large layer much faster. Be careful, though, since not rendering the pixels outside of the mask can change the composition’s appearance significantly. (See Creating masks.)

Snapshots

When you want to compare one view to another
in a Composition, Layer, or Footage panel, take a snapshot.
For example, you may want to compare two frames at different times
in a movie.

Snapshots taken in one kind of panel can be displayed
in another kind. For example, you can take a snapshot of a Layer
panel and display the snapshot in a Composition or Footage panel.
Displaying a snapshot does not replace the content of the panel.
If the snapshot has a different size or aspect ratio than the panel
in which you display it, the snapshot is resized to fit the current
view.

Snapshots are for reference only and do not become
part of the layer, composition, or rendered movie.

A sound
is generated when you take a snapshot.

To take a snapshot, click the Take Snapshot
button at
the bottom of the panel or press Shift+F5, Shift+F6, Shift+F7, or
Shift+F8.

To view the most recent snapshot taken with the Take
Snapshot button or Shift+F5, click and hold the Show Snapshot button at
the bottom of the panel.

To view a specific snapshot, press and hold F5, F6, F7,
or F8.

To purge a snapshot, hold down Ctrl+Shift (Windows) or
Command+Shift (Mac OS) and press F5, F6, F7, or F8.

Preview on an external video monitor

You can preview the contents of your Layer, Footage, or Composition panel on an external video monitor. Previewing on a video monitor requires additional hardware, such as a video capture card or a FireWire port.

With the After Effects CC June 2014 release, previews can be displayed on a second monitor connected to your video display card, such as, via DVI, DisplayPort, or HDMI. If you are using a video capture card to connect an external video monitor, install the appropriate drivers and connect the monitor to view previews. If you are using a FireWire port, first connect a digital camcorder or similar device to the port; then connect the video monitor to the device. For more information on setting up FireWire previews, see the documentation for your digital camcorder, VCR, or other device.

To enable video output to an external device, choose from the following options:

Adobe DV: This is the FireWire option.

Adobe Monitor x: These are your attached computer monitors that can receive video preview data through the graphics card.

Third-party video hardware: These entries differ depending on what third-party hardware you have connected. AJA Kona 3G, Blackmagic Playback and Matrox Player are typical examples.

Choose Disable video output when in the Background option to prevent video frames from being sent to the external monitor when After Effects is not the foreground application.

Choose Video preview during render queue output option to send video frames to the external monitor when After Effects is rendering frames in the render queue.

The video preview sent to an external monitor using Mercury Transmit is color-managed (treating the external video preview monitor as an HDTV Rec. 709 device). For more information, see the Video preview using Mercury Transmit article.